president obama and mitt romney get set for their first debate in denver. service sector growth slows across the globe in september. and rajoy issues the latest denial that he's ready to seek a bailout. >>> other stories we're following for you today. the apple faithful are just getting used to their iphone 5, but the rumored mini ipad may not be that far behind. reports say apple's asian suppliers are now mass producing a new tablet with a lower resolution 7.8-inch screen, that's versus the nine inches for the current ipad which came out back in march. apple is expected to unveil the mini ipad sometime later this month but the company isn't revealing any details. this has been why we've been seeing a spike in apple share prices recently in both germany and the united states on the back of expectation about all these products before christmas. today you can see we've got a bounce in the frankfurt listing of the stock, up another 1.6%. >>> reportedly close to a deal to sell up to $6 billion worth of its assets in the gulf of mexico. they have narrowed down t